St Neots, Cambridgeshire sounds a bit posh, on paper this market town on the river Ouse with lots of parks and countryside to enjoy… In reality it’s far from it!
St neots is a bitchy jealous town, where if they are not slagging of Huntingdon, moaning that they get all the good stuff and that st neots should get it as ‘it’s the biggest town in Cambridgeshire’ don’t you know! They are slagging of every thing new they do get….new leisure park – (admittedly the construction of the cinema was a farce – having to be dismantled after it was found to be 6inches to close to houses behind!). The restaurants (complaining about the staff the service and food) to the new housing estates, which depending who you talk to and when, are full of unemployed drug taking criminals in social housing (don’t get me wrong there’s a few but only a quarter of what the locals will tell you).
Then there’s the London commuters – visit some areas of st neots early in the morning and you will see them all rushing to the train station parking there cars wherever they like, blocking roads, on pavements, on verges just to get out of paying for parking in the empty secure huge car park at the station – many a councillor has tried to get this sorted but really, the only way to stop these inconsiderate twats, is a dent to the paintwork.
Love’s Farm and Eynesbury Manor are like ghost towns in the week, due to most of the residents working in the big smoke! What’s wrong with that I hear you say? At least they are working?!? This is true, but the outright snobbery gets the locals backs up, coming up here paying over the odds for houses – offering more than the asking price and keeping young locals off the property ladder. When asking where you work you get the response of ‘oh I work in the city and commute every day’ we are surrounded by cities (Peterborough, Cambridge and even Ely) but they mean London (many of them don’t actually work ‘in the city’ either!). With these ‘Londoners’ come fancy ideas, coffee shops, shabby chic and de stressed furniture shops and delis. Not really for the locals but for the ‘city £s’
What theses new residents don’t understand is that half of St Neots were originally Londoners, if not them, at least their parents or grand parents. St neots grew rapidly in the 60s and 70s due to London over crowding and factories moving out and brining with them the work force and so the council built them estates – sandfield road/duck lane areas being one. These Londoners fitted in and did well for themselves moved on from this area and council houses and left as an ex boyfriend of mine used to say the ‘Bronx’ of st neots with dealers, single mums and a number of large families ruling the roost.
It isn’t a new thing moving from London and we don’t care where you came from but don’t go around saying ‘oh in London we do this….’ ‘I miss ‘£’/ as every where in London’ if it’s so great move back there!
This brings me to the locals… they love a rumour, they can start rumours from nothing that get spoken about, that people believe it as fact. God help you if you prove otherwise. They are not ****** – which makes a change for articles on here – but lots of large families intertwined that most genuine locals if not directly related they may be related to you, through your mum’s sister’s daughter marrying your mate’s cousin’s son….you have to do the family trail before you **** someone off.
Where do they shop, well if you need a greetings card, buy a house or donate to a charity shop – you are in luck as st neots has a few! But in a world where you order stuff online or get it all from the tesco extra on edge of the town the high street looks sad. Closed down or boarded up pubs are a common complaint and another thing you will hear the locals tell you, is that ‘st neots was in the doomsday book for most pubs in a square mile’ wouldn’t say that now…and the ‘Crown to town’ pub crawl is not as hardcore as it was back in the day!
The schools – people go mad for catchment areas for good schools here as anywhere else in uk. The secondary schools are rivals (standard!) longsands and Ernulf. Both full of same look alike kids with their one direction hair, or more make up than a hooker.
The surrounding villages are not much different, little Paxton, with life revolving round The Anchor pub (well used to be, until the new ****** landlord took over!) and where if you haven’t had *** in a car down the gravel pits car park, you are not a true Paxtonite! Great Paxton where they don’t even have a shop and the residents are allegedly quite partial to some wife swapping!
Oh I could go on and on but hey gotta get my train to the city ?
